Marshall Islands military base residents to get broadband

Residents on Kwajalein Atoll will soon get access to broadband internet for the first time following an agreement between the Marshall Islands National Telecommunications Authority and a U.S. Army contractor.

The authority's general manager Tommy Kijiner Junior says they are providing bandwidth connecting Kwajalein with Guam and the United States.

He says that the NTA will provide a lot of bandwidth at a competitive price.

He also says a contractor working at the base will be in charge of installing the hardware in each house at the base.

Kwajalein Atoll sports some of the world's most sophisticated equipment for missile testing, including a dedicated fibre optic cable so technicians can manage missile missions in real time from the US Army's Space and Missile Defense Command headquarters in Huntsville, Alabama.

But the high tech environment had not extended to the homes of the 2,000 residents living at the Army's Reagan Test Site in the Marshall Islands who have had to rely on dial-up internet access.